Chapter 8

Soon afterwards I read _Jane Eyre_ again, and was more than ever astonished at it. It is not to be classed; it is written not by a limited human personality but by Nature herself. The love in it is too great for creatures who are ‘even as the generations of leaves’; the existence of two mortals does not account for it. There is an irresistible sweep in it like that of the Atlantic Ocean in a winter’s storm hurling itself over the western rocks of Scilly. I do not wonder that people were afraid of the book and that it was cursed. The orthodox daughter of a country parson broke conventional withes as if they were cobwebs. _Jane Eyre_ is not gross in a single word, but its freedom is more complete than that of a licentious modern novel. Do you recollect St. John Rivers says to Jane: ‘Try to restrain the disproportionate fervour with which you throw yourself into commonplace home pleasures. Don’t cling so tenaciously to ties of the flesh; save your constancy and ardour for an adequate cause; forbear to waste them on trite, transient objects. Do you hear, Jane?’

She replies—‘Yes; just as if you were speaking Greek. I feel I have adequate cause to be happy, and I _will_ be happy. Good-bye!’

Therein speaks the worshipper of the Sun. Do you also recollect that voice in the night from Rochester? She breaks from St. John, goes up to her bedroom and prays. ‘In my way—a different way to St. John’s, but effective in its own fashion. I seemed to penetrate very near a Mighty Spirit; and my soul rushed out in gratitude at His feet. I rose from the thanksgiving—took a resolve—and lay down, unscared, enlightened—eager but for the daylight.’ The Mighty Spirit, who was Jane Eyre’s God, had directed her not to go to India as St. John’s bride to save souls from damnation by conversion to Jehovah, but to set off that very day to Rochester at Thornfield Hall.

Consider also how inseparably the important incidents in _Jane Eyre_ are linked with one another and with character. Jane refused Rochester at first and St. John finally. She could not possibly do otherwise. But I must stop. You did not ask for an essay on Charlotte Bronte. Suffice it to say that when I had finished _Jane Eyre_ I said to myself that I would not write any more. Nor did I ever attempt fiction again. _Judith Crowhurst_ is a plain, true story, altered a little in order to prevent recognition. I knew her well. There is no suffering in any stage tragedy equal to that of the unmarried woman who is well brought up, with natural gifts above those of women generally, living on a small income, past middle-age, and unable to work. It is not the suffering which is acute torture ending in death, but worse, the black, moveless gloom of the second floor in Hackney or Islington. Almost certainly she has but few friends, and those she has will be occupied with household or wage-earning duties. She is afraid of taking up their time; she never calls without an excuse. What is she to do? She cannot read all day, and, if she could, what is the use of reading? Poets and philosophers do not touch her case; descriptions of moonlit seas, mountains, moors, and waterfalls darken by contrast the view of the tiles and chimneys from her own window. Ideas do not animate or interest her, for she never has a chance of expressing them and, lacking expression, they are indistinct. Her eyes wander down page after page of her book, but she is only half-conscious. Religion, such as it is now, gives no help. It is based on the necessity of forgiveness for some wrong done and on the notion of future salvation. She needs no forgiveness unless she takes upon herself a burden of artificial guilt. She rather feels she has to forgive—whom or what she does not know. The heaven of the churches and chapels is remote, unprovable, and cannot affect her in the smallest degree. There is no religion for her and such as she, excepting that Catholic Faith of one article only—_The clods of the valley shall be sweet unto him_. As I have said, I knew Judith Crowhurst well, and after she was dead I wrote her biography, because I believed there are thousands like her in London alone. I hoped that here and there I might excite sympathy with them. We sympathise when we sit in a theatre overpowered by stage agony, but a truer sympathy is that which may require some effort, pity for common, dull, and deadly trouble that does not break out in shrieks and is not provided with metre and scenery.

You were kind enough to get _Judith Crowhurst_ published for me, and it has had what is called a ‘success,’ but I doubt if it will do any good. People devour books but, when they have finished one, they never ask themselves what is to be done. It is immediately followed by another on a different subject, and reading becomes nothing but a pastime or a narcotic. _Judith_ may be admired, but it is by those who will not undergo the fatigue of a penny journey in an omnibus to see their own Judith, perhaps nearly related to them, and will excuse themselves because she is not entertaining.

I was asked the other day if I was not proud of some of the reviews. Good God! I would rather have been Alice Ayres, {148} and have died as she died, than have been famous as the author of the _Divine Comedy_, _Paradise Lost_, or _Hamlet_. She is now forgotten and sleeps in an obscure grave in some London cemetery. No! there will be nothing more. I have said all I had to say.

CLEARING-UP AFTER A STORM IN JANUARY

A WESTERLY storm of great strength had been blowing all day, shaking the walls of the house and making us fear for the chimneys. About four o’clock, although the wind continued very high, the clouds broke, and moved in a slow, majestic procession obliquely from the north-west to the south-east. Here and there small apertures revealed the undimmed heaven behind. Immense, rounded projections reared themselves from the main body, and flying, ragged fragments, apparently at a lower level, fled beside and before them. These fragments of lesser density showed innumerable tints of bluish grey from the darkest up to one which differed but little from the pure sky-blue surrounding them. Just after the sun set a rosy flush of light spread almost instantaneously up to the zenith and in an instant had gone. Low down in the west was a long, broadish bar of orange light, crossed by the black pines on the hill half a mile away. Their stems and the outline of each piece of foliage were as distinct as if they were but a hundred yards distant. Half the length of the field in front of me lay a small pool full to its grassy margin. It reflected with such singular fidelity the light and colour above it that it seemed itself to be an original source of light and colour. Of all the sights to be seen in this part of the world none are more strangely and suggestively beautiful than the little patches of rain or spring water in the twilight on the moorland or meadows. Presently the wind rose again, and a rain-squall followed. It passed, and the stars began to come out, and Orion showed himself above the eastern woods. He seemed as if he were marching through the moonlit scud which drove against him. How urgent all the business of this afternoon and evening has been, and yet what it meant who could say? I was like a poor man’s child who, looking out from the cottage window, beholds with amazement a great army traversing the plain before him with banners and music and knows nothing of its errand.

THE END OF THE NORTH WIND

FOR about six weeks from the middle of February we had bitter northerly winds. The frost was not very severe, but the wind penetrated the thickest clothing and searched the house through and through. The shrubs, even the hardiest, were blackened by its virulence. There was scarcely any sunshine, and every now and then a gloomy haze, like the smoke in London suburbs, invaded us. The rise and fall of the barometer meant nothing more than a variation in the strength of the polar current. Growth was nearly arrested, although one morning I found three primroses in a sheltered hollow. Never had the weather seemed more hopeless than towards the close of March. On the last evening of the month the sky was curiously perplexed and agitated notwithstanding there was little movement in the air above or below. Next morning the change had come. The wind had backed to the south, and a storm from the Channel was raging with torrents of warm rain. O the day that followed! Massive April clouds hung in the air. How much the want of visible support adds to their charm! One enormous cloud, with its base nearly on the horizon, rose up forty-five degrees or so towards the zenith. Its weight looked tremendous, but it floated lightly in the blue which encompassed it. Towards the centre it was swollen and dark, but its edges were dazzling white. While I was watching it, it went away to the east and partly broke up. A new cloud, like and not like, succeeded it . . . I followed the lane, stopped for a few minutes at a corner where the grassy road-margin widens out near the tumble-down barn, looked over the gate westward across the valley to the hills beyond, and then went down to the brook that winds along the bottom. It runs in a course which it has cut for itself, and is flanked on either side by delicately-carved miniature cliffs of yellow sandstone overhung with broom and furze. It was full of pure glittering moor-water, which seemed to add light to the stones in its bed, so brilliant was their colour. It fell with incessant, rippling murmur over its little ledges, gathering itself up into pools between each, and so it went on to the mill-pond a mile away. Close to me a blackbird was building her nest. She moved when I peeped at her, but presently returned. Her back was struck by the warm sun and was glossy in its rays. A scramble of half a mile up a rough track brought me to the common, and there, thirty miles distant, lay the chalk downs, unsubstantial, a light-blue mist.

Youth with its heat in the blood may be more capable of exultation at this season, but to the old man it brings the sounder hope and deeper joy.

ROMNEY MARSH

‘Proceeding from a source of untaught things’

(_Prelude_ xiii. 310)

HERE is Appledore; over there is Romney Marsh. The sky has partly cleared after heavy, south-westerly rain. On the horizon where the sea lies the clouds are in a line, and the air is so clear that their edges are sharp against the blue. Nearer to me they are slowly dissolving, re-forming, and moving eastwards, and their shadows are crossing the wide grassy plain on which in the distance Lydd Church is just discernible. I can report something of those greys and that azure, but the best part of what is before me will not outline itself to me. Still less can I shape it in speech. Necessity, majestic inevitable movement, the folly of heat and hurry, all this emerges and again is blended in the simple unity of transcendent loveliness. But beyond there is something so close, so precious! and yet elusive of every effort to grasp it.

She came to meet me from the line Where lies the ocean miles away; And now she’s close; she must be mine: I wait the word that she must say.

The magic word is not for me: The vision fades, and far and near The west wind stirs the grassy sea In whispers to the watching ear.

AXMOUTH

A TRUE Devonshire village, sloping upwards from the Axe. The cottages are thatched, and the walls are of cobbles, plastered. A little gurgling stream runs down the village street, and over the stream each cottage on its bank has a little bridge. The poor brook is much troubled, unhappily, by cabbage leaves and the like defilement, and does its best to oversweep them and carry them away, but does not quite succeed. In a few minutes, however, it will be in the Axe, and in half an hour it will be in the pure sea. A farmhouse stands at the end of the village with a farmyard of deep manure and black puddles coming up to the side-door. The church, once interesting, has been restored with more than usual barbarity, blue slates, villa ridge-tiles, the vulgarest cheap pavement, tawdry decorations and furniture, such as are supplied to churchwardens by ecclesiastical tradesmen. But the tower is still grey, and has looked unchanged over the Axe estuary for hundreds of years. Turning up from the main street is a Devonshire lane eight feet wide or thereabouts. It ascends to a farm on the hillside, and its steep high banks are covered with ferns and primroses. A tiny brooklet twitters down by its side. At the top of the down is a line of old hawthorns blown slantingly by south-west storms into a close, solid mass of shoots and prickles. They are dwarfed in their struggle, but have thick trunks, many of them covered with brilliant yellow lichen.

For miles and miles before it comes to Axmouth, and above Axminster, the Axe flows in singular loops, often returning almost upon itself, reluctant to quit the lovely land of its birth, youth, and maturity; but now it is straighter, for it is in the lowlands and feels the tide. Flocks of seagulls wade or float in it. It passes quietly under its last bridge, but beyond it is confronted by a huge shingle barrier. Sweeping alongside it, it suddenly turns at right angles, cuts its way through with an exulting rush, holds back for a few yards the sea waves that ripple against it, and is then lost.

THE PREACHER AND THE SEA

THIS morning as I walked by the sea, a man was preaching on the sands to about a dozen people, and I stopped for a few minutes to listen. He told us that we were lying under the wrath of God, that we might die at any moment, and that if we did not believe in the Lord Jesus we should be damned everlastingly. ‘Believe in the Lord,’ he shouted, ‘believe or you will be lost; you can do nothing of yourselves; you must be saved by grace alone, by blood, without blood is no remission of sins. Some of you think, no doubt, you are good people, and you may be, as the world goes, but your righteousness is as filthy rags, you are all wounds and bruises and putrefying sores; the devil will have you if you don’t turn to the Lord, and you will go down to the bottomless, brimstone pit, where shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth for ever and ever. Believe,’ he roared, ‘now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation.’

Sunny clouds lay in the blue above him, and at his feet summer waves were breaking peacefully on the shore, the sound of their soft, musical plash filling up his pauses and commenting on his texts.

CONVERSION

IN 1802 Lady B. was living at M— Park. She was a proud, handsome, worldly woman about fifty-five years old, a widow with no children, but she had a favourite nephew who was at the Park for the larger part of the year and was the heir to her property. She had been gay in her youth, was the leader of society in her county, and when she passed middle life still followed the hounds. She was a good landlord, respected and even beloved by her tenantry, and a staunch Tory in politics. The new evangelical school of Newton and Romaine she detested bitterly, as much in fact as she detested Popery. The nephew, however, came under Newton’s influence and was converted. His aunt was in despair. She could not conquer her affection for him, but she almost raved when she reflected that the inheritor of her estates was a pious Methodist, as she called him. She had a good-looking, confidential maid who had lived with her for years. In one of her fits she told this maid that she would give half of what she possessed if her nephew were like other young men. ‘I don’t want him to be a sot or to gamble away my money,’ she cried, ‘but there’s not much else I should mind if he were but a man.’

A few days afterwards she spoke to her maid again. ‘Look you here, Jarvis, I shall go distracted. This morning he began to speak to me about my soul—the brave boy that he used to be, talking of my soul to _me_! Listen to what I tell you and be reasonable. I know perfectly well, and so do you, that before he took up with this sickening cant he was in love with you and you were in love with him. I saw it all and said nothing. I understand there’s no more flirting now. Ah, well, his blood is red yet; I’ve not forgotten what five-and-twenty is, and he’ll come if you whistle. You can’t marry him, of course, but you can and shall live comfortably afterwards for all that, and when he has done what all other young fellows do there will be an end to the prayer-meetings.’

The girl was a little staggered, but after a time her mistress’s suggestion ceased to shock her, for the nephew was a handsome fellow capable of raising passion in a woman. What the aunt had said was really true. She now threw the girl in his way. She was sent to him with messages when he was alone, and one evening when he had gone over to a prayer-meeting in the town about two miles away, she was directed to go there on an errand, to contrive to be late, and to return with him. She had half an hour to spare and was curious to know what the prayer-meeting was like. She stood close to the inner door, which was slightly ajar, and heard her master praying earnestly. He rose and spoke to the little congregation for five minutes. When he had finished she started for home, and he came up with her before she had passed the last house. It was nearly dark, but he recognised her by a light from a window, and asked her what she was doing in the town at that hour. She excused herself by unexpected detention, and they went on together. About half a mile further at the top of the hill was the stile of the pathway that was a short cut to the park. From that point there was an extensive view over the plain eastwards, and the rising moon was just emerging from a line of silvered clouds. They were both struck with the beauty of the spectacle and stood still gazing at it.

Suddenly she dropped on her knees and with violent sobbing called upon God to help her. He lifted her up, and when she was calmer she told him everything. They went on their way in silence. Now comes the remarkable part of the story. It was he who would have been the tempter and she had saved him. When they reached the Park he found his aunt ill, and in a fortnight she was dead. In less than two years nephew and maid were married. His strict evangelicalism relaxed a little, but they were both faithful to their Friend. Lovers also they were to the last, and they died in the same month after each of them had passed seventy-five years.

I fancy I read a long while ago somewhere in Wesley’s _Journal_ that an attempt was made to ruin him or one of his friends with a woman, but I think she was a bad woman. If there is anything of the kind in the _Journal_ it shows that Lady B’s plot is not incredible.

JULY

IT is a cool day in July, and the shaded sunlight slowly steals and disappears over the landscape. There are none of those sudden flashes which come when the clouds are more sharply defined and the blue is more intense. I have wandered from the uplands down to the river. The fields are cleared of the hay, and the bright green of the newly mown grass increases the darkness of the massive foliage of the bordering elms. The cows are feeding in the rich level meadows and now and then come to the river to drink. It is overhung with alders, and two or three stand on separate little islands held together by roots. The winter floods biting into the banks have cut miniature cliffs, and at their base grow the forget-me-not, the willow-herb, and flowering rush. A brightly-plumaged bird, too swift to be recognised—could it be a kingfisher?—darts along the margin of the stream and disappears in its black shadows. The wind blows gently from the west: it is just strong enough to show the silver sides of the willow leaves. The sound of the weir, although so soft, is able to exclude the clacking of the mill and all intermittent, casual noises. For two hours it has filled my ears and brought a deeper repose than that of mere silence. It is not uniform, for the voices of innumerable descending threads of water with varying impulses can be distinguished, but it is a unity. Myriads of bubbles rise from the leaping foam at the bottom, float away for a few yards and then break.

It is the very summit of the year, the brief poise of perfection. In two or three weeks the days will be noticeably shorter, the harvest will begin, and we shall be on our way downwards to autumn, to dying leaves and to winter.

A SUNDAY MORNING IN NOVEMBER

THE walk from the high moorland to the large pond or lake lies through a narrow grassy lane. About half-way down it turns sharply to the left; in front are the bluish-green pine woods. Across the corner of them, confronting me, slants a birch with its white bark and delicate foliage, light-green and yellow in relief against the sombre background. Fifty yards before I reach the wood its music is perceptible, something like the tones of an organ heard outside a cathedral. In another minute the lane enters: it is dark, but the ruddy stems catch the sun, and in open patches are small beeches responding to it with intense golden-brown. Along the edge of the path, springing from the mossy bank they grow to a greater height. A pine has pushed itself between the branches of one of them as if on purpose to show off the splendour of its sister’s beauty. It is stiller than it was outside; the murmur descends from aloft. There was a frost last night and the leaves will soon fall. A beech leaf detaches itself now and then and flutters peacefully and waywardly to the ground, careless whether it finds its grave in the bracken or on the road where it will be trodden underfoot. The bramble is beginning to turn to blood. It is strange that leaves should show such character. Here is a corner on which there are not two of the same tint, but they spring from the same root, and the circumstances of light and shade under which they have developed are almost exactly similar.

It is eleven o’clock, and with the mounting sun the silence has become complete save when it is broken by the heavy, quick flap of the wood-pigeon or the remonstrance of a surprised magpie. Service is just beginning all over England in churches and the chapels belonging to a hundred sects. In the village two miles away the Salvation Army drum is beating, but it cannot penetrate these recesses. Stay! a faint vibration from it comes over the hill, but now it has gone. A fox, unaware of any human being, walks from one side of the lane to the other, stopping in the middle. There is a breath of wind and the low solemn song begins again above me.

UNDER BEACHY HEAD: DECEMBER

AT the top of the hill the north-westerly wind blows fresh, but here under the cliffs the sun strikes warm as in June. There is not a cloud in the sky, and behind me broken, chalk pinnacles intensely white rise into the clear blue, which is bluer by their contrast. In front lies the calm, light-sapphire ocean with a glittering sun-path on it broadening towards the horizon. All recollection of bare trees and dead leaves has gone. The tide is drawing down and has left bare a wide expanse of smooth untrodden sand through which ridges run of chalk rock black with weed. The sand is furrowed by little rivulets from the abandoned pools above, and at its edge long low waves ripple over it, flattening themselves out in thin sheets which invade one another with infinitely complex, graceful curves. I look southward: there is nothing between me and the lands of heat but the water. It unites me with them.